Small-scale fisheries, Cambodia
In Asia as a whole fish provide 30% of the animal protein in a typical diet. Fishing and related industries provide either the main or a supplementary source of employment, livelihood and income for many of the region’s poor.
Recent work at the WorldFish Center has shown that the demand for fish will grow substantially in this region and projections suggest that if production can match demand, then total fish consumption in the region will rise from around 41.5 million tonnes in 2005 to 52.3 million tonnes by 2015.
Aquaculture development will be key to meeting that target. Rehabilitating and sustaining coastal fisheries is also crucial for small-scale fisher folk and their families across the region. We are also strongly engaged in addressing the challenges posed by climate change that are poised to have major impact on coastal areas across this region.
WorldFish is actively engaged in three areas:
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South Asia
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the Greater Mekong Basin
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Philippines
South Asia
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South Asia is home to nearly 40% of the world’s poorest people, those who survive on less than a dollar a day. India has the world’s highest proportion of malnourished children closely followed by Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh. In Sri Lanka, 29% of preschoolers are underweight. The combined population of these five countries is expected to rise from the current 1.5 billion to 2.2 billion by 2050, with the biggest increases occurring in rural areas where the poorest people live. Together, population growth and global climate change threaten to reverse hard-won gains against extreme poverty and hunger.
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Our work focuses primarily on Bangladesh. The overwhelming importance of fisheries and aquatic resources there provides a powerful entry point for addressing poverty, food insecurity and vulnerability to environmental shocks (floods, droughts, climate change). Our development of innovative fisheries co-management approaches in Bangladesh has been hailed as “an eminently replicable model for contemporary rural development.” Lessons learned on developing aquaculture in seasonal floodplains, integrating aquaculture with agriculture, and disseminating improved fish seed have also yielded benefits far beyond the country.
The Greater Mekong Basin
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The Mekong Basin is a rich ecosystem that supports the lives and livelihoods of millions of poor in Southeast Asia. Encompassing the nations of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam, it is coming under enormous intensification pressures for multiple uses that threaten to undermine its productivity and resilience.
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Our work in this area largely focuses on Cambodia. The livelihoods of more that 74% of the population depends on agriculture and fisheries. Food security in Cambodia has traditionally had two dimensions: rice and fish, with fish being a central aspect of rural livelihood strategies. More than 80% of the total animal protein the Cambodian diet is estimated to come from fish and other aquatic animals.
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Cambodia has the most intensively exploited inland fishery in the world. The country’s fresh water capture fisheries rank as the fourth most productive in the world after China, India and Bangladesh. There is growing concern that a decline in capture fisheries would have immediate consequences for food security in rural Cambodia as the rural poor face an increasingly short supply of this staple food item in their traditional rice-fish diet.
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The Mekong River is the second river in the world for its fish diversity, after the Amazon – the magnitude of which is only being discovered. In terms of fish biodiversity, the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia, with 197 species recorded so far, as the lake ecosystem having the fourth highest fish diversity in the world, or the richest lake in the world after east‐African lakes.
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Plans for hydropower development in the Mekong have led to growing concern over the potential environmental, economic and social costs, and there is acute concern over the impact on the basin’s fisheries. Dams impact fish communities and the fisheries dependent upon them by changing the ecological functioning of the river ecosystems that sustain these communities and their fisheries.
The Philippines
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Comprising more than 7,000 islands, the Philippines has an extensive coastline that is a key environmental and economic resource for the nation. The fisheries sector is vital to the Philippine economy providing substantial employment and income especially in rural areas, contributing to export earnings, and ensuring local food security as well as meeting nutrition requirements.
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These coasts support a growing tourism industry and fisheries that provide about half of the dietary protein needs of the Philippine population. Fish and fish-based products are the major source of animal protein (70%) for the poor with fish expenditure accounting for over 16% of the total food budget for the lower income group. Mangroves, the salt-tolerant forests that play an important role in stabilizing the coastlines of the Philippines, also provide important nursery grounds for numerous fish species. However, the quantity and quality of harvestable resources from the country‘s coastal waters have declined dramatically due to overfishing and habitat degradation resulting from pollution, sedimentation, and the destruction of mangroves, and now has been exacerbated by the effects of climate change.
